Benghazi Attack Details Aired

WASHINGTON—Former Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus is expected to appear before Congress Friday for the first time since he resigned last week amid revelations of an extramarital affair, but the hearing will focus solely on matters related to the Sept. 11 U.S. consulate attack in Libya.

His appearance represents the convergence of a pair of controversies engulfing the nation's national security establishment, and Mr. Petraeus plays a central role in both.

Some lawmakers hope that his testimony before the Senate and House intelligence committees will begin to dispel a crop of conspiracy theories surrounding Mr. Petraeus's affair and the consulate attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

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Acting CIA Director Michael Morell arrives at the Capitol Thursday to testify before House and Senate committees on what happened in Libya.
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"This is a good thing for the country and for the CIA and for Petraeus personally," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D., Md.), the top Democrat on the House committee.

Other lawmakers are skeptical, however, of how much new information will come from Mr. Petraeus's appearances, which will follow hours of testimony on Thursday on the attacks from top officials before the same two congressional committees.

Like the hearings planned for Friday, Thursday's were held behind closed doors. But interviews with lawmakers indicated that over several hours, they were given a detailed description of the Sept. 11 assault by intelligence and law enforcement officials. The officials also spent about 30 minutes discussing the investigation that uncovered the Petraeus affair, lawmakers said.

Mr. Ruppersberger said officials described tandem attacks that targeted the U.S. consulate complex and, later, an annex building used by the CIA. The briefings revealed the far greater sophistication of the second attack on the CIA annex, which began hours after the first attack had ended, he said.

The intelligence officials also provided a detailed explanation of conflicting intelligence reports that spurred intense political criticism in the lead-up to last week's presidential election.

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Testifying before the House and Senate panels were Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, acting CIA Director Michael Morell, Federal Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director Sean Joyce, State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) said he left Thursday's hearing convinced the intelligence was inaccurate at times, but hadn't been changed or slanted for political purposes. "I'm confident there was no attempt to mislead either Congress or the administration," he said.

Thursday's hearings also delved into the question of whether administration officials denied requests for additional security measures, an issue that has exposed political divisions over the past several months.

Still, the hearing apparently failed to address why it took so long for intelligence reports to reflect the realization that the consulate attack wasn't preceded by a protest, as was first believed.

"There are still some remaining questions about the course of the intelligence assessment and why certain, better information didn't reach the fore more quickly," Mr. Schiff said.

The CIA's first analysis, prepared on the morning after the attack, said the assault appeared intentional and indicated it didn't appear to stem from a peaceful protest. That analysis also mentioned the possibility of connections to an al Qaeda affiliate.

By the next day, however, the assessment shifted. When Mr. Petraeus briefed lawmakers on Sept. 13 and 14, his briefing papers showed the CIA believed the attack stemmed from a protest. The CIA began receiving new information on Sept. 15 that casted doubt about the protest, but after vetting the intelligence, the agency maintained the assessment that there had been a protest.

The CIA maintained that assessment until Sept. 20, when intelligence officials told counterparts at the White House that it had changed.

It took two more days for that change to be reflected in the briefing provided to President Barack Obama.

Mr. Schiff declined to cite specific details, but he said intelligence agencies received additional conflicting information that muddled the picture. "They continued to refine their assessments," he said. "In some cases, that may have gotten closer to the truth, and in some cases, farther away."

On Thursday, CIA officials said the agency had opened an "exploratory" investigation into Mr. Petraeus's conduct.

"If there are lessons to be learned from this case we'll use them to improve," said CIA spokesman John Tomczyk "But we're not getting ahead of ourselves; an investigation is exploratory and doesn't presuppose any particular outcome."

Another U.S. official said among the issues the CIA would want to examine is whether any of Mr. Petraeus's communications or activities related to the affair posed a risk to agency interests aside from any possible disclosure of classified information. Classified documents were found on the computer of Paula Broadwell, the woman who Mr. Petraeus acknowledged having an affair with. But he told the FBI he did not provide the documents.

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